The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham

This book is a deal, a couple adventures of the great pulp mag hero The Spider for a good price and, I'm sure not chosen by accident, one of the stories has a Superman connection and one has a Batman connection. Neat Steranko cover too, he's gotten good at painting.

Like The Shadow before him, The Spider is a rich playboy by day and a mysterious crime fighter by night. There's a few differences between them, most notably the Spider leaving his symbol stamped on the foreheads of his victims and he seems a little more eager to brandish his twin pistols. But he also comes off a little more the everyman at times as he doubts himself and his chance of success. As you can see from the summaries, you've got everything you need to make great pulp stories: a hero with a secret identity who's hunted by the police, a girl Friday, a minority man-servant and over the top villains. Some reviews describe The Octopus as a "villain pulp" but I wouldn't. It definitely seems Dr. Skull/The Skull Killer is the main character here and The Octopus is lurking in the background putting his plan in motion, much like the Vampire King in the second Spider story. It's still a fun story! If you like pulps this is definitely worth a look, however, I'd refer you to check out the pulp reprints (if you can find them) instead of the paperback to get the full pulp experience.

As a long-time pulp hero fan, am always looking for more inexpensive reprints of these heroes. While I have all the Doc Savage and Avenger novels, most of the other heroes haven't been as heavily reprinted, one of them being "The Spider". With over 100 Spider novels, its annoying how many have been reprinted by multiple publishers and how many haven't been touched by any. Actually, this book has 2 Spider novels and the one Octopus novel. Let me explain the Octopus. Its really a 'villian pulp', as the Octopus is a villian. The hero is the mysterious "Skull Killer"/Dr Skull character. This series didn't really succeed, and the second Octopus novel was re-written as "The Scorpion". I really wished Baen had reprinted that novel in their second Spider collection, as I don't have a copy of it. Also, it used to be thought that Novell Page wrote "The Octopus". Recent research has pointed to Ejler and Edith Jacobsen as the REAL authors of "The Octopus/The Scorpion". So Baen publishing all three under Page's name is incorrect. My main complain is the same as another reviewer. Considering all the Spider novels that HAVEN'T been reprinted in paperbacks in recent years, why reprint 2 that HAVE??? Both Spider novels were reprinted by Carrol & Graf in their double-novel books in the 1990s, which I have. I am planning on getting their second collection. I was surprised they put this out in massmarket paperback. Hopefully they'll do the same with the second one and we'll see more.

What great plots on all three stories. The third story was especially scary. Norvell Page was a great author.

This is actually THREE classic short novels, rather than two. The first two are tales of "The Spider", the kind of hero whose stereotypes are Doc Savage or The Shadow, a man whose public face is "idle rich", but by night... The first story, SATAN'S MURDER MACHINES, finds the Spider dealing with the Robot Titans of the title. Giant walking machines which kill and ravage the city with impunity, thwarting all efforts to stop them. This story absolutely stunned me with the amount of thought and planning that went into it. I won't reveal the machine's secrets here, but I will say that Page was dealing with concepts that wouldn't re-appear in science fiction for almost thirty years, and he made the machines both believable *and* workable. Fun. The second story, DEATH REIGN OF THE VAMPIRE KING, we find the Spider dealing with a villain who uses swarms of bats, augmented with poison fangs, to terrorize the city. The Spider ends up framed for the murders and must both catch the killer and clear his name. The aerial combat scenes were splendid, and I liked the fact that Nita, the Spider's girlfriend, is drawn by the author to be just as skilled and tough-minded as the Spider. The final story, THE OCTOPUS: THE CITY CONDEMNED TO HELL, was a one-off that apparently never gelled as a series. It deals with "Dr. Skull", a skilled and dedicated young physician, who disguises himself as old, and fights crime and evil wherever he finds them. Here, he must deal with "The Octopus" an evil both ancient and young, who turns people into monsters to feed his empire. It's not quite up to "The Spider", but it was fun to read. Add in cover *and* interior art by Steranko, and you've got a recipe for solid entertainment. The book also lists another volume "The Spider: City of Doom" in the works. This was a heckuva lot of fun to read, so all I can say about the prospct of another volume is: Goodie!